For most of us, best imagination of cosmic scale takes us to the size of the Sun. After all, the closest star to the Earth is 109 times bigger than our home planet, and Earth is already one giant rock. It is perhaps that's why it is mind boggling to imagine something much bigger than the Sun.
Scientists have now studied a star so big, just bubbles on its surface are 75 times bigger than the Sun.
The name of the star is R Doradus. It is a red giant star and is nearly 350 times wider than our Sun. The star is near the end of its life.
So what about the bubbles?
These bubbles are formed due to process called convection. It is similar to what happens when you boil some water in a vessel. It's just that the bubbles on the surface of R Doradus are super big.
What's so special about this study?
The latest study marks the first time humanity has been able to click the bubbling in a star other than the Sun.
"This is the first time the bubbling surface of a real star can be shown in such a way," says astronomer Wouter Vlemmings of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. He has been quoted by scientific journal Science.
"We had never expected the data to be of such high quality that we could see so many details of the convection on the stellar surface."
And scientists couldn't have chosen a better candidate that R Doradus to study what changes take place at the surface level of a star. Because it is so large, it is easy to discern the changes on the surface of the star. Almost proportionate to its size, R Doradus' activity is bigger. In short, large size, huge activity makes up for easier imaging.
